What did Christ mean when He said: "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”?
Jesus Christ was perfect, He was God Who emptied Himself of His Divinity, came in the flesh, was filled with the Holy Spirit from birth and never sinned! While on this earth even though He showed us as human beings how to live a sinless life, no human being has ever attained to perfection in this life!
Christ knew that no human being could ever be sinless in this mortal life, so what did He mean when He told us to be perfect when He knew it was impossible?
- Rom 3:10: “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Therefore we have to understand what perfection means to God!
Let’s see what Christ Himself explained when He said we are to be perfect like our Father in heaven.
Chapter five of the book of Matthew has always been known as the book of beatitudes.
The Latin word for blessed is beatus, from which we get the word
Christ said in this chapter, as well as others that we would be blessed if we follow His value system. Even though verses 3-12 are what most people call the “beatitudes” the rest of this whole chapter explains those 9 verses.
Jesus goes on to tell His disciples that their reward will be great in heaven if they follow these values that Christ set down (Mat.5:12). He showed in His lifetime here on earth how to fulfill them and taught them to all those who came to Him. If these values are applied in our lives we will be blessed, not only in this life but also in the world to come! These values are what we should stand for as Christians. These are the epitome of the last 6 of the 10 Commandments. The first four express our love for God and the last six express our love for each other!
For most people some of these values are hard to put into practice. Take for example:
- verse 44: "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,”
Yet, how many people who have been done wrong try to take vengeance on the perpetrator by getting even with them.
God not only tells us to bless and do good to those who have done evil to us but to also pray for them!
- Verse 46:"For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?
It is easy to love those who love us. The hard thing is to love those who hate us!
The last verse explains to us why and how! Because God the Father is good to everyone and He wants us to be just like Him! After all, He sent His Son to die for all of us while we were yet sinners because He loves us so very much and wants us to be with Him in His Kingdom! But we have to repent and submit our will to His. He not only loves us but also those who are evil (hoping that they will eventually repent) He also wants us to love all mankind as He does. For those who do us wrong there are ways to deal with them and we will discuss that in the next article. But God is our avenger!
- Romans 12:19-21: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord. Therefore if your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink: for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Matthew 5:45 & 48 these last two scriptures of the chapter sum it all up!
- “That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
- "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
So, being like God our Father which is also being like Jesus Christ His Son Who came to reveal His Father is how we are perfect in God’s sight!
Does that mean that we let people run over us? NO! We will deal with that issue in the next article.
Continued…..How do we deal with those who have wronged us?
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